Page 40 of The Dragon Sacrifice

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Jerrard awoke with a start. Where was he?

Opening his eyes did no good. There was no light to see by. He was able to sit up, move his limbs, but when he crawled forward, his hands swept through a curtain of something solid and sticky. It came off on his fingertips, trailing after him like cobwebs.

Those goddamned mutant spiders.

The last thing he remembered was tearing off after Seela. She’d been so brave, throwing herself headlong down the corridor, no doubt trying to save him and his brothers by putting her own life in danger once again. But the horde had followed her. All of them. They knew if they could kill the sacrifice, the brothers were done for. There would be no curse breaking, no salvation. It would be the end.

Had the horde killed Seela? He’d seen them dragging her body away, and it drove him mad with anger. He had plunged into the fray as the fastest of the brothers, fighting like a maniac against a hundred beasts at once. They’d taken him down. Of course they had. What could he do against that many? But he’d fought hard enough to make his brothers proud. Of that, he was sure.

Oh, Seela. Where was she? He couldn’t bear the thought of her dead. Killed because they could not protect her. Making a fist, he vowed to kill as many horde as he could before they drained him dry. That had to be their plan, why they’d kept him alive.

And where were his brothers? Alive? Dead? Jerrard felt awash with grief, regret, and anger.

“Where are you, you bastards?” he shouted, reaching out for the gauzy material in front of him. No matter how far he stuck his hand into the wall of web, it never seemed to end. And the further his arm went in, the more tangled he became. He was just barely able to extract himself before becoming permanently stuck.

He decided that instead of trying to go through the web, he’d feel around to see if there was another opening. Shuffling with his feet, he ran his hands along the web and traced its perimeter. What he found was a very wide oval shape with a cave wall at the back. He tried scaling the wall, but the surface was too smooth. He also tried slipping through where the rock met the web, but it was just as sticky and thick.

“How do I get out of here?” he said aloud.

“Jerrard?” a groggy female voice said from somewhere in the middle of his cell.

“Seela?” In a panic, he shuffled toward her voice. “Are you really here?”

“I’m here,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

He found her in what he decided was the center of the oval prison. She’d been passed out on the floor, and he’d skirted around her in his exploration. Now, he found her and settled his body down beside hers. Feeling forward, he ran his hands down her arms, making sure she was intact.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said slowly. “They were attacking me, dragging me back, and… one bit me. I think I passed out.”

“You’re okay. I’m here,” he said, holding onto her hand to maintain contact with her since it was pitch black.

Her skin was warm as her fingers squeezed his back. “I’m glad I didn’t wake up in here alone.” The sound of her body shifting let him know she was sitting up. That was a good sign. She was more resilient than he gave her credit for. His father had always maintained that human females were weak, even joking that way about Jerrard’s own mother before her death. And when the human king killed her so easily, he’d chalked it up to her frail human body.

Yet, Seela was nothing like his mother, or what he remembered his mother to be. She was bold, tough, and brave. His poor dead mother had been none of those things. But then, maybe that was why Seela had been the lone survivor as the dragon sacrifice. Maybe that was why she was alive right now.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked again.

“A little lightheaded,” she said, “but yes. Better than I was expecting considering I had all those monsters on me. There aren’t any in here with us, are there?”

He could hear the fear in her voice, so he gently put his arm around her. She scooted closer, accepting his comfort by leaning into him. “I don’t think there are. I made a full circle around the perimeter.”

“And we’re locked in?”

He nodded, but then remembered she couldn’t see him. “With some horrible web-like material. I tried to break through, but just managed to get stuck. I could try again.”

He started to get up, but she pulled him down. “In a minute,” she said, her voice still laced with fear. She didn’t want him to leave her. “I just wish we could see.”

It hurt Jerrard not to be able to provide light for her. But then, he hadn’t really tried the tiny bit of illumination magic they always used to make the gems imbedded in the walls glow.

This time before he got up, he offered her reassurance. “I want to try something. I’ll get up for a second, but then I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she said, but he could feel her uncertainty.

He gave her hand a squeeze before standing and walking with his arms out until he bumped into the back wall. Once he’d placed his palms on the rock, he pushed out what little remained of the magic within him.

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